


taste your beating heart

by smaragdbird



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Getting Back Together, Hickey doesn't know how to deal with his emotions, Kissing, M/M, Sex, Touch-Starved, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Violent Thoughts, What else is new?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 17:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21165149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: The first night in the tents, HIckey slipped into Gibson's after everyone else was asleep.





	taste your beating heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).

He slipped into Billy’s tent long after everyone else had gone to bed. The late Arctic spring meant that it was still twilight with less and less darkness each night. Soon only the sun would remain. Officially Billy was sharing with Armitage but he had another place to sleep.

“Who’s there?” Billy asked, sitting up in his cot.

“Relax, Billy, it’s me.” He kept his voice quiet, canvas made for bad walls and Irving was, unfortunately, still alive. He crossed what little space there was and sat down.

“You shouldn’t be here, Cornelius”, Billy said. “If someone catches us – “

“No one will catch us”, he interrupted him. “No one cares.” It was laughable how many of the men who would’ve condemned him for fucking Billy last year, now shared their tents with another man for closeness and comfort.

He reached out and wrapped his hand around the back of Billy’s neck. These days he always wanted to touch Billy and it was inconvenient and annoying at best, dangerous at worst.

There was a moment of hesitation but then he felt the tension leave Billy’s body and there was no resistance when he pulled him into a kiss. They had stolen a few of those since Carnivale but Billy had been paranoid about Irving noticing their renewed closeness, so it had never amounted to more than that.

Feeling a sudden surge of anger his grip on Billy’s neck tightened so much it had to be painful and he deepened the kiss, made it harsher and hungrier as if he wanted to devour Billy. And he did. He wanted to swallow him whole, destroy him so that all these confusing stirrings in his chest would stop. 

He broke the kiss and straddled Billy’s lap.

“Cornelius”, Billy whispered breathlessly and he hated it because that wasn’t his name and just once he wanted Billy to say it. Just to hear it again after years of keeping it locked up.

This time it was Billy who pulled him into a kiss, his large hands gently framing his face as he kissed him as if he had been waiting for this for just as long. That alone made him feel even more furious because if it hadn’t been for Billy’s cowardice they could’ve been doing this for the last year.

Burying his fingers into Billy’s curls he forced his head back, breaking the kiss as his mouth found Billy’s exposed throat. He remembered all the places that made vulnerable and rolled his hips against Billy’s lap as his teeth grazed the edge of Billy’s jaw. Stubbled rasped against his lips and it was all he could do keep himself from biting down, from sinking his teeth into Billy’s neck whether it was to leave a mark visible to everyone or to rip his throat out, he wasn’t sure.

Billy’s long, clever fingers had been working the buttons of his shirt and slipped beneath his undershirt. A shiver ran down his spine when Billy touched the bare skin of his stomach. He had never liked this with any of the other men he had fucked. Billy was dangerous to him and his fingers itched for a knife.

“Cornelius”, Billy said, sounding slightly impatient as he pushed his shirt over his shoulders and pulled at his undershirt. He let him if only because he was slightly surprised by Billy’s sudden initiative. Half-naked he felt cold and exposed. In the twilight he could see that Billy was looking at him intently but he couldn’t decipher his expression.

“Not fair, is it, Billy?” He asked, teasingly, as he reached for Billy’s shirt. 

“Do I need to do all the work?” Billy used the same light tone and then, in one smooth motion, pulled his own shirt and undershirt over his head. 

This was unchartered land. They had never taken off more clothes than necessary. Life on a ship had never afforded them the time or privacy for that.

What he did notice immediately was the rope around Billy’s neck and the ring he had given him as bribery and a claim and a token all at the same time. He hadn’t needed Billy’s cooperation, not with Armitage owing him, but he had wanted it.

He hadn’t expected Billy keep the ring this close. When he reached out and touched it the metal was warm from the heat of Billy’s skin. He surged forward, capturing Billy’s lips anew in a kiss suitable to what he was feeling. And this new intimacy, the sensation of their bare chests touching did not help.

Billy’s large hands roamed greedily across the expanse of his back, pulling him closer. The sensation as different, unhurried as if they had all the time in the world. They did, he realised or rather they had the entire night. A lump of something cold and tight formed behind his breastbone but he couldn’t describe what it was. But it made his heart race in his chest and tightened around his throat, its tendrils threatening to choke him.

If Billy noticed then he didn’t let it on and it made him furious that he could make him feel like this, make him feel anything at all, and remain oblivious to it. His hands turned into claws and as his nails left scratches on Billy’s skin, he wished he could reach deeper, rip it off him and leave Billy feeling as exposed as he felt right now.

He blinked, trying to get a grip on himself. Usually he wouldn’t let his emotions run havoc like this but he had also never been so intimate with another person. Working a hand down into Billy’s trousers, he found his cock, hard and aching and familiar. 

“Get this off”, he demanded, tugging at Billy’s cock.

“Only if you do, too”, Billy replied, followed by another kiss and he needed – he needed Billy to stop this because it made him unable to think.

“I wasn’t just going to look at you”, he said with a smirk because sex, sex was much easier. What was Billy thinking, touching and kissing him like this? He needed it to stop, yet at the same time he craved Billy’s touch the moment they separated to get out of the rest of their clothes.

Billy had always been on the skinny side but the last few weeks of reduced rations and backbreaking sledging had taken what little weight he had had to spare. Still, it was the first time he had seen Billy completely naked and he wanted to…he wanted to take him apart piece by piece until he understood why Billy’s absence had made it so hard to breathe over the last year even when he had been trying so hard not think his name, not to even look at him.

“Thought you weren’t just going to look”, Billy teased him and he smiled in returned, pushing Billy back down on the cot. He expected him to turn to his stomach, but instead Billy stayed on his back and pulled him down so he could settle between Billy’s legs.

This was by far from the first time he had fucked Billy. For one winter the y had found every dark corner on the ship whenever possible but this was the first time he could see Billy’s face during it, the first time Billy would pull him into a messy breathless kiss after the other, the first time when he truly did not want this to end. He wanted to possess Billy inside out, wanted to crawl under his skin, crack him open and nest in his chest, like Billy had done to him.

He wanted Billy, he wanted to devour him whole, wanted to burn him and swallow the ashes, but most of all he wanted him distant and impersonal. This was just too much, too drawn out, too indulgent. 

Something built up in his throat, words he set his teeth against, a confession he had never wanted to make to anyone before. The inexplicable truth of what Billy meant to him despite everything. Fear crawled up his arms and settled between his shoulder blades. Its chilling hand reached out and gently squeezed his throat. This had been a mistake. It was too much, too close, too intimate. 

Underneath him, Billy’s eyes fluttered close in that perfect moment of mindless surrender to the pleasures of the body and he had to hold him still and fight the urge to fuck him until Billy promised him everything, even things he didn’t want to admit to himself yet.

He felt that sharp, heady rush that came when everything balanced right on the edge and it was the quiet gasp of the wrong name from Billy’s lips that pushed him over.

Billy smiled, slow and warm like he imagined the sun over the Sandwich Islands to be. It went to his core, through his very bones and he the blink of an eye it felt as if he had died. It had to be impossible for a man to feel this much and still live. Then Bill pulled him down and into another sweet kiss and he realised that he had been wrong. This was so much worse than before because he had never felt lighter than in this moment. He would’ve floated away if it hadn’t been for Billy’s kiss like nails in his feet. He pulled away and thought about simply leaving but he knew it was too late in any case. 

Billy was his and he’d keep him whatever the cost, whether Billy or anyone else agreed or not.


End file.
